Papyrus and movable type were huge steps forward in their times, but the 20th century saw massive jumps in data storage. Paper and ink gave way to magnetic tape and various types of disk, and suddenly humanity could store so much more than just the written word. Unfortunately, we’ve also hit some major speed bumps along the way.

As long as video games have been in existence, they’ve been seriously constrained by technical limitations. There’s only so much RAM, CPU power, and storage space to go around, but that’s not always a bad thing. In fact, the quirks of the hardware can actually help mold the way games are designed, and there’s no better example of that than storage media itself. From diskettes to Blu-rays, the oddities and limitations of the given medium dictate what kind of games can be made.

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